BarCamp Bangalore, which entered into its sixth edition over the weekend, was one of the best so far. It was different from the previous camps in one aspect—one could not just register for attendance, but had to register a topic to speak on, to ensure active participation of all present. Despite this precondition, more than 400 people turned up, talked and had a blast.

The sessions were broadly divided into four tracks— product demos, Internet, citizen talks, and mobile and gizmo talks.

In addition to these, the Corridor Sessions & Daris were also a great hit. These were essentially smaller, impromptu discussions initiated on the spot by the participants.

(pic credits: Swaroop CH)

Social networking site MySpace launched its developer program for India at the camp and had several well-attended sessions.

Another area that saw intense discussions was Rich Internet Apps (RIA). Some of the popular sessions included ‘Open social’, ‘Tweaks for high performance websites’, ‘Democracy and how to get your voters list’, ‘VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol)—some misconceptions in India’ and ‘Problems start-ups face’.

Social media gatherings such as the Bangalore Tweet-up (meet-up of users of microblogging service Twitter) and Blogathon meet-up for bloggers were also well attended. BarCamp even saw sessions on lighter topics such as ‘Dating tips’ and ‘Sun signs’.

The product demo sessions had several start-ups showcasing products they were working on. This included RangDe.org, a microlending start-up, CommonFloor.com, social networking for daily use, and Mantis, a GDS (global distribution system) for bus agents and operators.

There were also sessions from Kickstart (organizers of Headstart and Start-up Saturday) and incubation cells of Indian Institutes of Management, Bangalore and Ahmedabad.

This barcamp was distinctly ahead in terms of participation and confluence of multiple domains. What could have been better is campers taking up more hands on sessions and hack hours. All said and done I had a good dose of ideas & innovation.

This article can also be found on LIVEMINT

BarCamp Bangalore 6 Logo – I redesigned this with original logo concept by Anand Krishnaswamy. My other logo submissions can be found here.

Designed a few BarCamp Bangalore 6 badges – Get yours now!

Design by Aditi!

Yes folks. Time to camp at IIMB again. After a lot of speculation, date and venue clearences Barcamp Bangalore 6 is going to happen on April 19th and 20th at the beautiful campus of IIMB.(Trust me it’s an experience to be in IIMB campus!)

I’am planning to have 2-3 sessions. One on quick ‘Logo Design’ for startups / bloggers.. which may eventually tempt me to do a logo camp for them..

Another topic of interest would be Content management systems and thier design. Apart from this looking forward to bump into some interesting chaps.. and gals (if any!)

What are waiting for? Register for the Bangalore Barcamp 6 here!

Yup! This was my 4th BarCamp Bangalore and it gets crazy everytime. The unique flavour this time around definitely was the ‘daris’ (mattresses) , the cool stickers (I designed ‘em ) , designing BarCamp collective and of course the User Interface & Design Collective

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Also how I can miss the two night outs with second happening to be the night of my birthday! The time I had with the BCB5 Organising Team was just splendid. Had a great time with the folks especially at Jace’s place the Sunday night. Inevitably had to consume a few birthday bums, though they were surprisingly mild!

Things I took back from BCB5:

1. Good Interaction at User Interface and Design Collective.
2. Met 2-3 new interesting folks.
3. Visited Alok’s place for dine & wine! (Alok runs Hidden Reflections, a start-up and they are building something really cool!!)
4. Enjoyed the IIMB campus yet again. (Pre, Post and during the event!)
5. Made some friends (2 of them) in the IIMB batch of 2007-09!
6. Broke free on a saturday and a sunday!
7. Celebrated my birthday with the BCB5 Organising Team at 12 in the night!
8 Key decisions were taken at Designing the Barcamp Collective! (wow.. we actually discussed how to unconference better next time.)

I again happened to design the logo, BCB5 Badges. and the banner this time around.

The energy levels were great and really liked 4 discussions from the 2 days of exhaustive talks. For those who have missed do catch up on some mug shots here

The team has bonded stronger like never before and am sure BCB6 too will rock.